Are Medical Sensors Creating Too Much Data for Consumers?

Are Medical Sensors Creating Too Much Data for Consumers? (1:47)

Medical sensors are creating huge amounts of data, but the challenge is converting it into useful information. In this video, HealthMaker John Lach, PhD, chair of computer and electrical engineering at the University of Virginia, explains the issue.

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It is absolutely one of the big challenges in the field right now, we've gotten to the point with all of the technical advances that I mentioned, we've got to the point where we now can pretty effectively collect all of this data. Continuously over an extended period of time, fairly non invasively there's still a lot of work that needs to be done on that.

But really that issue of converting that raw data into useful information and providing that information appropriately I think is one of the next big steps. This is an example of that, and a few years ago I was working with a cardiologist, and we were asking her what physiological parameter would be most useful for her to track continuously and she's had blood pressure.

And so we worked very hard to build this system that provided continuous blood pressure monitoring and we'd stream that data in real time to her desk. So she could get in a real time access to blood pressure. And it was a very nice little gadget that could provide that capability and then when we sat down with her she started using it, she said, I really don't need this in real time what I meant when I they said that I wanted blood pressures is that I wanted occasional measures of it just sampled every fifteen minutes, half hours something like that.

Just timed to mean plot of that, I just wanted to see what the fluctuations were throughout the day it wasn't something I needed in real time. And so a good example of as we go through this process and try to understand what the real medical needs are, the essential compenent for this otherwise, we will end up providing these technologies that aren't just not useful they're actually harmful.

About John Lach, PhD

John Lach, professor and chair of the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia, talks about how health technology, including body sensors, empowers patients and improves healthcare.